Disconnect me
I feel my time here
is over
or at least no longer wanted
for I see it in every strange pair of eyes
that home may have abandoned me
sent me out into the cold,
and whereas before I could
see a way to move on,
to move aside
put on my shoes, pack a bag,
overfilled
with memories and the hope that I might
recapture them once day,
now I just experience pain,
loneliness
and fear
that all has been
Across the spectrum, from you to me,
we are told to be
patriotic, to shoulder the gun
and protect the country,
to fight for our right to be free,
don’t ask me if I could put a gun
to another man’s face,
eye to eye
you might not like the answer,
but I would rather not;
yet somehow being Transgender
makes you unfit to serve
under Trump’s bold vision,
so as an unfit, overweight
pacifist who you don’t want to see
pull a trigger, I would be welcome more
If I turned up at your door tomorrow, would you
think me broken, as we haven’t spoken
for a while, always the chin
held firmly, would you remember all
that I once did for you
or even the odd screw up, foul up,
because after all I am only human
and I have never labelled you perfect,
I have never seen you as the fixer
of the busted, the shattered or the ruined,
I have just seen you as the friend,
the final one who might just understand
Just that little nudge,
the everyday elbow
that sends you ever closer
to the final straw snapping
somewhere in the darkness.
Today I have a headache,
formed by the blood not flowing
properly and the neurons
firing at everything I am,
taking me downhill
like being ignored socially;
today I have a headache,
I keep rubbing my forehead,
almost violently, with the intention
to harm as my spine harms me,
my own payback
on the spite, my revenge
if you will,
1900 voices
in my head
saying nothing,
quiet
but not gentle, their silence
damning as they talk to each other,
whispering away,
laughing away
in the tranquillity of no noise,
no reached hand
to include, only
to ignore; these
1900 voices
in my head,
a pay for view
no attention
and I feel the turning away.
Ian D. Hall 2017
The last day of anything
should be treated as though
it is a day for games, to emulate
the final day of term
in which the teacher, finally
acknowledging that she has exhausted
herself, gives up and lets the kids
run riot.
Parliament could play Buckeroo,
the appointed donkey
accounting for Government sins
as they try to explain
the difference
between a wheelchair, mental health,
a nurse’s salary and a nuclear bomb.
Athletic doping cheats,
at the moment of being banned
There are days I remember
how old I am
and all that has gone,
floated down stream
and now poisons the oceans,
I remember the punk
Eddie
waiting to jump Maggie
and take the self styled Iron
Lady down,
in picture form,
sometimes
those memories
are the ones that
make me smile the
most.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Their faces look down upon screens
as the 53 rattles to the touch
of two fingers of my right hand,
keeping tune with the song
rolling round my mind,
late night bus home, a few
stare my way and I allow the curl
of a semi smile to come to my aid,
lips spread wide and the fingers hit out
at the rhythm at hand,
it could be anything,
it might have been a local star
of beautiful seduction,
perhaps Thom Morecroft or dear sweet
People have weird dreams,
‘tis all I’m saying,
not making assumptions
but if my dreams are anything to go by,
that holiday home in the South
of France, sipping shelled grapes
and eating croissants for breakfast,
that expensive car, worth more
than the house they live in,
and still only capable of
listening to Classic F.M.
when the signal is weak;
they say, Living the dream,
I daren’t tell them mine,
having been seduced by glamour’s women
on my worn out sofa,
Hollywood starlet, fighting
You are paid too much,
money is too tight
for the public sector purse.
Only a politician with greed upon his mind
would suggest that a nurse, a firefighter,
a police officer or a teacher
is earning too much,
isn’t that a slap in the face,
perhaps it would have only been worse
for those devils who dare be public spirited
and do the jobs that others cannot do,
if Philip Hammond had bared his backside
to the news anchors
and the television cameras